Sunday, March 23, 2008

Mind the Gap

Random memories of the past four days … the train ride from Gatwick Airport to London … dark brick row houses with chimneys against gray sky … church spires … daffodils and graffiti by the railroad tracks … woman in a burka, her baby in a carriage … Victoria Station, the bustling city crowds … Dickensian faces … the man with guitar singing about meningitis … getting off the tube … “mind the gap, mind the gap” … struggling with my luggage through the streets I hear someone shout “Hey, Wild Bill!” and looking up see a workman on a rooftop smiling …

Trafalgar Square … the National Gallery … coming face to face with a giant da Vinci cartoon … at first I don’t recognize it then realize it is one I have long admired in a book I own, but it’s a different picture seen full size with my own eyes … a group of uniformed school children seated on the before a painting of Perseus and Medusa, listening to a lecture … British accents and so many languages … French, Spanish, Italian … strange to be in a place where there are so few Americans … strange and not a bad feeling at all …

At Madame Tussauds on Good Friday … the place is mobbed … almost entirely French tourists, people getting their pictures taken with the wax figures … movie stars, sports stars, royalty … political figures … no one goes near the Bush or Nixon figures … but people crowd around JFK and MLK … the Sherlock Holmes Museum on Baker Street gets my vote for Best. Tourist. Trap. Ever … wonderful realistic relics from Holmes’ career under glass … going up the narrow creaky Edwardian staircase to the top floor to a small room where mannequins are posed in lurid murder scenes … wonderful …

Harrods … impossible crowds, Egyptian décor … my feet are hurting … uniformed guards … riding down the escalator I see a crowd below taking pictures of something … everyone chattering in a dozen languages, Chinese, Spanish … “que esta?” … “es Diana y Dodi” … a memorial to Diana and Dodi … I pull out my camera and take a photo, which comes out blurry due to the jostling crowd … next day at Kensington Palace, Diana merchandise … and the Diana Memorial Fountain shaped like a fountain ... we wander Kensington Garden … wind roaring in the bare trees, sunlight and shadow alternating on the manicured green grass … children playing … the occasional jogger … lovers strolling arm in arm … the sunlit clouds sail south …

In the tube, a couple are lost and confused by the map … he is upset, fit to be tied, speaking rapidly and loudly in Italian … a group of young British men walk up looking concerned, try to help … one holds out his map … the couple look at it bewildered … Chandra walks over and explains it to the woman who understands English … they thank her, smiling sweetly and hurry away … “mind the gap, mind the gap” …

London Tower … medieval walls … blasting cold wind … ornate graffiti on medieval prison walls … “the greater the suffering for Christ in this world, the greater reward with Christ in the next” something like that … the chopping block where Anne Bolyn was executed … an Italian woman gleefully makes chopping motions with her hands while her children laugh … ravens squawk … we walk across Tower Bridge in snow flurries, sky foreboding … at one point the Thames wind almost causes us to lose our caps and our footing … we laugh and forge ahead …

Then on the other side of the Thames, the sun comes out and we arrive at Boroughs Market and join the jostling crowd … wonderful cheese smells … fruits and vegetables … aromatic tables of fish that glow colorfully in British sun … at the German Deli stand, I order a freshly-cooked bratwurst sandwich with sauerkraut and wolf it down … then get in line at another stand to order a wild boar sandwich with onions and tangy sauce … Frenchmen walk by laughing say something about “wild boar” and make roaring sounds … I wolf down the sandwich, then buy baklava …

Later that night I take the tube to Hampstead where I was met by comic artist Carol Swain and her boyfriend Bruce … first time to meet Carol, though we emailed when I was editing The Bush Junta … she contributed the piece on the stolen election … we’ve both contributed to the same comic anthologies in the past, including both issues of Hotwire … now we meet … she and Bruce take me back to their flat, where we enjoy a lively conversation about the war and tyranny and dissent, and comics and things to see in London and so many things … Bruce is a New York expatriate who came to the UK over 20 years ago and decided to stay … they serve wonderful pizza and salad, and hand me binoculars and show me the view of London from their flat … the moon is full over St. Paul’s Cathedral … I give them copies of my Operation Northwoods comic and they give me copies of three recent comics they have collaborated on … they take me back to the tube station … “mind the gap, mind the gap” …

This morning, Easter morning, we looked outside and it was snowing … the snow didn’t stick, but it was pretty to see … they were big fluffy snowflakes that swarmed through the streets and swirled around the Dickensian rooftops … we were waiting for Melanie to arrive from the airport … she is Chandra’s high school friend, now living in Virginia … later they left for Isley to visit On the way to the Tate Britain, I come to the White Swan pub … order a fine creamy Guinness from the smiling German waitress … a smiling young Englishman brings me fish-and-chips … then, full of Guinness and fish-and-chips, I pull myself to a standing position and continue to the Tate to look at the pre-Raphaelite paintings … I am on my own today … we were joined this morning by Chandra’s high school friend Melanie … tonight they are in Isley visiting a couple they went to school with in Texas who are living here now … I sit in the flat eating lamb stew bought at Partridges on King’s Road tonight, sipping my Irish Stout, the sounds of London outside …